


Neglected Spaces

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8145673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: They are like two ships, passing each other in the night.(Or, the one where Dennis and Ruri weren’t friends- but oh, all the things they could have been.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do a format experiment, and this is what happened.  
> As for the tags- there's definitely at least one scenario where it's romantic denruri, but most of the scenarios here are platonic or otherwise ambiguous, hence the "mostly gen" tag. Please interpret them however you'd like!

He sees her for the first time as a flutter in the corner of his eye, a pretty face milling between the gaps of a sea of strangers. He catches her downturned eyes for a second, just a moment, and then she is gone, vanished behind a father chasing his excitable child. In the back of his mind there forms a single whim, begging to be answered.

Trapeze Magician takes to the skies, and so too does she, brought to his makeshift center stage. There is a quiet curiosity radiating from her, a reflection of his own. He takes a grand bow, puts on all the charm of the person he wishes he could be- and lifts his head to see the midday sun glint off the silver wings of a familiar bracelet. _Oh_ , he thinks, _it’s all over._

He challenges her to a duel, and that meekness of hers melts away seamlessly into a hard-won confidence, rough around the edges.

“You’re not half bad,” he teases, and it draws a bit of pride into the gentle slope of her shoulders.

“Underestimating me?” she shoots back, a bit of brashness tucked away in her smile, “My brother and I plan to join the pro leagues. I don’t intend to give you an easy win.”

Dennis shakes his head. “I could never.”

The audience Dennis had meticulously collected laughs, cheers, gasps at every cleverly planned reversal, at every flashy summon, but it all fades to background noise, drowned out by the thread being woven between them. Dennis looks across the field to her, and her eyes hold the answer to his own anticipation, the expectation of something more to come. The atmosphere rises as her monsters take wing, and she breaks into laughter as Trapeze Magician and Shadow Maker engage them in a battle more like a waltz. Even when he pushes her back to the wall, her hand at zero, she smiles through the disappointment. He can’t help but return it.

It is the best duel Dennis has ever had.

“I had fun,” she says at the show’s end, “so let me repay the favor. Let me show you around a little.”

She drops a few bills into his hat, and the stone set in her bracelet glitters. Dennis thinks, abruptly, of the report he’ll need to make. “Sorry,” he says, “I have somewhere to be. Maybe next time?”

She is closer, now, and he can read the momentary disappointment clouding her eyes much more clearly. “Next time, then,” she replies with a small wave.

Dennis winks, but her back is already turned, long hair catching on the warm breeze. Her invitation is appealing, hanging in the air long after she is gone and his props are neatly packed away. He does not think of it.

(It is easier, that way, not to think of what might have been.)

:::

The curiosity, the thread woven between them is still there on their second meeting, when Dennis mimics her small wave of a week turned an eternity ago. But that is all it is, and then the thread is cut in a dirty back alley in a flash of purple light.

Dennis wonders, idly, if it would have been red.

:::

He goes to Standard as ordered and the story plays out, cards falling into place one after the other. Yuuya trusts him. The Lancers accept him as one of their own. The bracelet girl escapes, but it is of little consequence- sooner or later, they will all end up at Academia again.

(It’s odd, how much Yuzu and Serena look like her at first glance- but then he blinks, the momentary resemblance passes, and the ghost of a brief encounter vanishes. It would be an insult, he thinks, standing across the field from them, to compare their entire worth to that of a stranger’s.)

The cards fall into place. The Lancers cross dimensions. Dennis puts on his roles. Winning or losing is irrelevant, until the duel where it’s not.

(“You stole away my sister’s future,” Shun accuses, spits with such venom that remembering now, staring up at the springs of the bunk above him, it makes Dennis want to laugh. That almost makes it sound as if it was _personal._ )

:::

They meet for the last time, virtual strangers on a battlefield too big for just the two of them.

“Do you think we missed something?” she says on the dawn of the final turn, this time Dennis the one with his back to the wall. They think back to a duel, to an invitation declined, an opportunity missed. A hundred possible worlds spill forth between them, imagination painting tableaus of faux memories like stained glass portraits in the air.

* * *

 

(Ruri, standing in the center of Dennis’ Heartland apartment, his duel disk clutched tight between trembling hands. “These plans,” she says, and Dennis knows not if her voice trembles with anger or fear- “This is some awful joke, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Dennis says, and it rolls of his tongue with such ease that for a moment, even he is not aware that it’s a lie. “I have this friend back in New York who’s really into these real time survival games, and-“

Stop. Shatter. Reverse.)

* * *

 

Dennis shrugs, a lazy roll of his shoulders. “It would have ended the same way. You don’t seem like the kind of girl who appreciates being betrayed.”

* * *

 

(The Carnival comes to Heartland, drawing duelists from the world over and crowds from places Ruri’s only ever seen from pictures decorating the sides of world maps.

“I’m glad,” Ruri says, without a shred of hesitation, “that you could move your plans for today.”

At her side, Dennis freezes, always quick to catch on. Still, she wonders what gave her away. He replies, while she debates whether it was her tone of voice or her posture, “It was fun.”

His words are stiff, and so utterly unlike the person she’d grown to know these precious few weeks. Ruri wonders if now would be a good time to tell him that his acting could use some work, or if that would only ruin her chances.

She says, simply- “I like you.”

Dennis doesn’t reply, and that doesn’t sit badly with her. Perhaps she’s being hasty, perhaps she’s misunderstanding the soft flush of emotion that’s begun to well quiet in her chest when she’s with him- those are things she can understand.

What sits badly with her is how Dennis looks so pitifully _sad_ when he hears her words.

Stop. Shatter. Reverse.)

 

( _Yuuri shouldn’t be here_ , Dennis thinks, keeping measured pace with Ruri as they navigate the rubble-strewn streets, losing ground with every frantic turn. They will not lose him. Dennis knows this, as he knows too many of Academia’s secrets. He was, after all, an honors student in one life, a very long time ago.

Ruri takes his hand and pulls him into an alley- but the shortcut that had been there yesterday had been filled with rubble overnight, concrete and steel torn by a giants’ hand from the surrounding buildings.

“I didn’t know you liked tag too, Dennis,” Yuuri says, prowling into the alley with the undeniable air of a predator. Ruri’s hand in his goes slack. She is not a foolish girl; she knows full well the implications of the boy with her best friend’s face knowing Dennis’ name. He turns to her, tries to read what is written in the emotions flashing across her eyes- but she does not turn to meet him, only stares straight ahead, duel disk flashing to life. Ruri squeezes his hand hard before letting go, stepping forwards to meet Yuuri without another second’s hesitation.

_I trust you_ , her exposed back says to him. Yuuri spares him a single glance, as if anything Dennis could choose to do is ultimately inconsequential.

One turn, two. Ruri is fighting blind and everyone present knows that no matter how good a duelist she may be, the odds of her winning against a set of cards she hadn’t known existed ten minutes prior are slim to none. Dennis watches, sees Ruri lift her arm, watches her fingers settle atop her deck-

Yuuri watches, coldly amused, and Dennis knows that there will not be a fourth turn.

He steps up to her side, and a small smile crawls its way across Yuuri’s lips. His voice leaves him before he has time to second guess himself. “It’s my turn. Draw!”

Stop. Shatter. Reverse.)

* * *

 

They can’t go back- and what would await them if they could, they wonder. Betrayal, and a mockery of a tragedy, they’re certain.

* * *

 

(Dennis meets Kurosaki Shun for the first time while Dennis are sitting side by side in the Kurosaki’s kitchen, Ruri’s English homework spread across the table in front of them.

“Who,” Shun says, staring Dennis down, “is this?”

“He’s my friend,” Ruri replies, not looking up from her work.

Shun continues to stare Dennis down. He resists the urge to fidget as if he’s been caught and puts on his best smile, wondering if it would be too bold to ask him to-

Stop.)

(“No,” Ruri says, and steps up to his side, duel disk at the ready. “No. I’m not leaving you here alone. Either we’re both getting back to the shelter okay or neither of us are.”

“Ruri,” Dennis protests, watching as the Academia soldier closes in, wishing Ruri would listen to him and _leave_ so he can resolve this easily, the way he’d intended from the start-

But Ruri steps forwards, cards in hand, and there is nothing Dennis can do to stop her now. He’ll continue to play along, he’ll revise the plan, he’ll-

Stop.)

(Academia will never stop chasing them. Yuuri stalks their every move, a cat silently furious at being denied their prey, and the Obelisk Force follows obligingly behind- but Ruri can fight, and Dennis, Shun, and Yuuto will protect her until their dying breath. They are few in number but unerringly loyal, the beating heart of the Resistance. When Ruri turns to them, her eyes are tired but still so full of life, and she says-

_Stop_ -)

(They meet for the last time, old friends on a battlefield too big for just the two of them.

“If you could go back,” Ruri says on the dawn of the final turn, this time Dennis the one with his back to the wall. They think back to a duel, to an invitation accepted, an opportunity seized. A hundred possible worlds spill forth between them, imagination painting tableaus of faux memories like stained glass portraits in the air.

Dennis shrugs, a pointed roll of his shoulders. “We still would have ended up here.”

“Yeah,” Ruri replies, “but you were my friend. I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

_‘I wish we could go back_ ,’ Dennis does not say, but knows exactly what would await them if they could.

_It is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong- They don’t have a final duel in that world. It is somehow that much crueler without catharsis._

Stop. Shatter. _Reverse_.)

She thinks, locked away in her tower with nothing but the wind and her thoughts to keep her company, of all the things she should have done. She should have put aside her pride for just a moment and asked Shun to come with her, overbearing protectiveness and all. She should have been less naïve, should have let the invasion turn her hard and unwilling to trust any but those closest to her, like it did to so many of her comrades.

She should have forced down her curiosity and never chased the memory of a magician from a warm summer’s day out of the shelter.

(She wonders, sometimes, if she will ever speak to him again. She wakes up one morning, suddenly and unshakably sure that she will not. She does not ponder on why. It is easier, that way. Thoughts of the future she cannot have will only drive her mad.)

:::  
He walks into the shelter the night that Ruri’s optimism has started to waver. The stadium takes in more and more people every day and loses duelists every night, and Ruri scrambles through this new world, does whatever she can but it is too much, even for all their efforts combined. He moves as if the invasion has changed him, too- but it is not the same as the people of the shelter. He walks upright and easy, as if he’s just won the war, so unlike Ruri who feels the weight of the world lodged precarious between her shoulders.

She sets down the bucket of water as the magician and his companion turn away, stares absently at the faucet and thinks that she should go after him. She hesitates, hands balled up into fists at her sides.

 One beat, two.

She reaches out to turn the spigot, watches the water rise slowly while indecision rages fast across her thoughts. As the water reaches the top, she settles on this-

They’re just two strangers who happened to duel, once. If he’s a defector- if he’s her enemy- then they’ll meet again on a battlefield. This time, she won’t be the one to underestimate her opponent.

(This is what she tells herself. This is the resolution that crumbles quiet in the night.)

:::

They meet for the first time on one of the rare occasions Ruri would rather remain a bystander. She’s heard the rumors of this little street show from Sayaka, heard the chatter about the magician who can’t resist a good duel. His shows are flashy, his shows are beautiful. He’s a charmer, he’s just another street performer- It seems to Ruri that no one can agree on anything but the entertainment value of his shows.

She wants to see for herself, now. She arrives late, ends up peering through the gaps in the gathered crowd, trying to glimpse of the show just set into motion. It’s his eyes she ends up catching, for just a curious moment- and then she’s soaring high above the heads of the crowd, gathered up in his monster’s arms.

When he looks up at her, something strange flashes momentary across his features, something dark and significant that Ruri can’t place. She blinks, and it is gone.

He challenges her to a duel, and he turns bright and open again. As Ruri laughs, she thinks that perhaps she’d just imagined it, made something ridiculous out of the way the sun had cast long shadows across his face.

(Still, it is that single look that will haunt her, the face of a boy who’s seen the end of the world. It is the same look she will see briefly on a card, far from here- and then, too, she won’t know how to feel.)

:::

(She sees him for the first time from the back, taking a bow as his small audience applauds. _Oh_ , she thinks, _I just missed a fun-looking show._ )


End file.
